I can relate.

I’m 18, have currently finished school and is taking a gap year, and have been almost completely isolated for the majority of my life. I had absolutely no friends at school due to overwhelming fear of conversations, and felt inherently inferior to everyone to the point that my personality and interests felt of no importance, my sole driving obsessions were ‘getting people to like me’ and ‘becoming a normal person’. It didn’t help that I had both mild Asperger’s and a seriously unrealistic idea of how the world and social interactions worked and an obsession with being not just okay or enough, but perfect, fueled by Maladaptive Dreaming about having a perfect life. As a result I completely withdrew, kept conversations at school to a minimum, sitting alone at lunch, and not speaking to a soul outside of school. My school work suffered because I couldn’t stand the thought of doing anything related to school at home, I was disorganised, always late, ditsy, and generally a giant trainwreck of a person. The sole redeeming factor is that I was so screwed up that on the outside I must have looked mentally challenged, because by peers kind of treated me like a pet or a clown, with a sort of condescending niceness. What made it worse was the fact that my mom, bless her, thought that it was essential to excel in a number of sports to get into uni, so I also had to endure going to swimming, karate and netball after-school lessons for a total of 6 days a week, where I gained the same reputation as the weird, slightly creepy quiet girl as in school, only with a lot less fondness and more talking behind my back.

My coping mechanisms were lots of music, constantly carrying reading books around, and getting lost in shows and particularly anime, spending all of my money on junk food, anything that could distract me from what my life was actually like and take me away to another world so to speak. In particular I’d use this stuff (sans the food) to fuel my daydreaming, and I’d create characters and worlds, with some daydreams based off of the stories I read/watched, and some reimagining my real life and myself as being less shitty and actually having (gasp) friends. This was a blessing and a curse, because one on hand I feel like numbing myself to reality was probably the sole thing that kept me from self-harm or suicide, and it gave me a strange kind of optimism and will to go on, thinking that if I just tried harder next time, or read this self-help book, things would get better. They had to one day, right? Life couldn’t be so full of possibilities and end with me being depressed for all of it? On the other hand, it was a paralytic. I couldn’t do school work or develop myself and my interests, or find hobbies because I was addicted to escaping, not to mention the fact that it warped my perception of the world and others and fueled my complusive spending in the hopes that I could get the life I dreamed of (for reference I would blow £200 in a week. Regularly).

So that was before, but ever since school finished I’ve been getting better. My social skills have improved vastly (I can now sucessfully navigate small talk 75% of the time), and thanks to CBT therapy I’m aware that what SA tells me about myself is a lie, and that my true personality is actually not bad, I’m pretty funny at least. There are things that I like about myself, like you said I have things that others don’t and I’m proud of them. Plus I’ve realised that quite a few people in my old school actual liked me for me and weren’t just laughing at me behind my back, and the ones who are still local I’m keeping in touch with and can (apprehensively) call friends. I’m working on myself in terms of actually figuring out what my likes and dislikes are and developing hobbies and an identity. Heck, I even went to a party for the first time last week and it went pretty well!

However, there’s still so much that’s lacking that I wonder if I’ll ever truly overcome this and if it’s even worth trying. My lack of social development for the past 18 years has left me truly at a loss of how to actually connect with other people, and I’m still totally out of the loop as to what is normal to talk about. I experienced so little growing up that I have no stories to tell and no way to relate to others meaning that conversation goes in one ear and out the other unless happens to be about my narrow set of interests. I don’t know how to connect on an emotional level, heck, sometimes I have a hard time thinking people as actual people with emotions because I’m so used to seeing them as threats or obstacles due to SA, so I even wanna experience emotional highs and lows with others I can’t. While less so than before, I still feel like everyone watches me, like I can hear their voices in my head telling me that I suck, and I’m just so, so sick of it. Plus, to be honest, I’m quite obsessively haunted my the way my life has been so far, not an hour goes by that I don’t think about how empty I feel, or think about school and stuff and feel deep regret, or jealousy of others for so easily having the things I wish I had. To sum it up, I feel like an Android, programmed to keep trying to fix this one problem, Social Anxiety Disorder, while everyone else is just living life. And the only way to break free of that, I feel at the moment, is to find a way to stop giving a shit. And I know that that’s rich, because giving too many fucks is pretty much what anxiety disorders are, but I just want to be at peace at this point.

Sorry that this was so, very, very darn long, I just wanted you to know that you weren’t alone, and that reading your post helped me a lot. I was feeling particularly down today, but I dunno, this just gave a boost. I wish you all the best in the future, and that one day, everyone on this reddit can beat this thing.